Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Susanna Moodie
-
Standard Name: Moodie, Susanna
Birth Name: Susanna Strickland
Married Name: Susanna Moodie
Pseudonym: Z. Z.
SM
is best remembered for her first-person narrative of pioneer life in Canada, Roughing It in the Bush, 1852, considered a foundational work of Canadian literature. She was a prolific author who wrote children's stories, sketches, novels, poetry, and other non-fiction. Her work has proved important for two contemporary Canadian writers, Margaret Atwood
and Carol Shields
.
CPT
and her husband
left England for Canada just days before Susanna Moodie
and her husband
also left. They were eager to claim Thomas Traill's military land grant.
Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Viking.
47
New, William H., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 99. Gale Research.
332
Textual Production
Catharine Parr Traill
Catharine Strickland, later CPT
, anonymously published another tale for children entitled Little Downy; or The History of a Field Mouse: A Moral Tale, with twelve colour engravings; it achieved some popularity.
The British...
Author summary
Catharine Parr Traill
CPT
, sister of the writers Elizabeth
and Agnes Strickland
and Susanna Moodie
, is best known for her naturalist writing about nineteenth-century Upper Canada. She was a letter-writer widely respected and eventually rewarded for...
Family and Intimate relationships
Catharine Parr Traill
Her sisters included the writers Agnes Strickland
, Elizabeth Strickland
, and Susanna Moodie
. She shared a particularly close bond with Susanna, her fellow emigrant.
Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Viking.
5, 212
Travel
Catharine Parr Traill
To help her recover, a cousin named Rebecca Leverton took Catharine to Bath, Oxford, and Herefordshire. They returned to Reydon Hall upon news of her sister Susanna's
plans for emigration.
Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill. Viking.
43
Reception
Catharine Parr Traill
CPT
's writing is generally regarded as the optimistic counterpoint to her sister Susanna Moodie
's gloomy take on Canadian pioneer life.
Textual Production
Elizabeth Strickland
Two years later ES
collaborated with another sister, Susanna
, in another book for children: The Little Prisoner; or, Passion and Patience; and, Amendment; or, Charles Grant and his Sister. Again each author is...
Textual Production
Agnes Strickland
AS
published the pamphlet Patriotic Songs with her younger sister Susanna
(later Susanna Moodie).
Moodie, Susanna et al. Patriotic Songs, 1830. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/moodie-traill/027013-5007-e.html.
prelims
Peterman, Michael. Patriotic Songs by Agnes Strickland and Susanna Strickland. No. 4, National Library of Canada.
Family and Intimate relationships
Agnes Strickland
All but one of AS
's five sisters became writers when they grew up. Elizabeth
(1794-1875) became Agnes's collaborator or silent partner. Jane
wrote children's stories. Catharine
and Susanna
both emigrated with their husbands to...
Family and Intimate relationships
Elizabeth Strickland
ES
's closest relationship in her family was that with her next sister, Agnes
(1796-1874), together with whom she built her writing career. (From about mid-century if not earlier, their relationship was regularly disrupted by...
Textual Production
Carol Shields
CS
published a critical study based on her MA thesis, Susanna Moodie
: Voice and Vision.
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
Later she took advantage of her position as a faculty wife to enroll for a course in writing for magazines (at her husband's suggestion) at the University of Toronto
—which changed the direction of her...
Textual Production
Carol Shields
She took up poetry by a strangely roundabout route. Having noticed that in novels she read the female characters were hopelessly unlifelike, she was forcibly struck by an honest portrayal of a woman produced by...
Textual Production
Carol Shields
CS
was left after her MA degree with surplus material on Susanna Moodie
which she had not been able to use in her thesis because it was too speculative. She found a home for it...
Textual Production
Carol Shields
She set out to portray a woman who had (and needed) good friends, to illuminate those aspects of Moodie
which Moodie herself had kept hidden, and to build on her own sense of connectedness to...
Timeline
3 June 1829: Publisher Henry Colburn went into partnership...
By 2 August 1856: Jane Margaret Strickland published a novel,...
Women writers item
By 2 August 1856
Jane Margaret Strickland
published a novel, Adonijah, a tale of the Jewish Dispersion; it was shortly attacked by George Eliot
in Silly Novels by Lady Novelists as one of the deplorable types of fiction...
Texts
Moodie, Susanna. Enthusiasm, and Other Poems. Smith, Elder, 1831.
Moodie, Susanna. Flora Lyndsay; or, Passages in an Eventful Life. R. Bentley, 1854.
Moodie, Susanna. Geoffrey Moncton; or, The Faithless Guardian. DeWitt and Davenport, 1855.
Moodie, Susanna. George Leatrim; or, The Mother’s Test. Hamilton, 1875.
Moodie, Susanna. Life in the Clearings versus the Bush. R. Bentley, 1853.
Moodie, Susanna. Mark Hurdlestone, the Gold Worshipper. R. Bentley, 1853.
Moodie, Susanna. Matrimonial Speculations. R. Bentley, 1854.
Warner, Ashton, and Susanna Moodie. Negro Slavery Described by a Negro. Samuel Maunder, 1831.
Moodie, Susanna et al. Patriotic Songs. J. Green, 1830.
Moodie, Susanna et al. Patriotic Songs, 1830. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/moodie-traill/027013-5007-e.html.
Moodie, Susanna. Roughing It in the Bush. R. Bentley, 1852.
Moodie, Susanna, and Susan Glickman. Roughing It in the Bush. McClelland and Stewart, 1989.
Moodie, Susanna. Spartacus. A. K. Newman, 1822.
Prince, Mary, and Susanna Moodie. The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave. Editor Pringle, Thomas, F. Westley and A.H. Davis; Waugh and Innes, 1831.
Moodie, Susanna, and Elizabeth Strickland. The Little Prisoner; or, Passion and Patience; and, Amendment; or, Charles Grant and his Sister. Dean and Munday, 1828.
Moodie, Susanna. The World Before Them. R. Bentley, 1867.
